A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
"Young
Bert Stern was already one of the leading fashion photographers of the 1950's when he resolved to shoot his first film before he was thirty. He made it, with two years to spare. The result,
Jazz on a Summer's Day, is a luminously breezy film that brings the rich color palette of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar of those years into the world of the documentary cinema."
[more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Jul 5, 2010 -
19 comments
At Sammy's at 2016 Main, on September 8, a historic jam session occurred, an impromptu reunion of many of the city of New Orleans's finest musicians. Each player who walked in the door was much more than a mere musician that night -- they were an affirmation of life. Not only did their attendance indicate that they had survived the storm, but their collective presence also indicated that their music would survive, too.
The
New Birth Brass Band (and friends) tears it the hell up in downtown Houston post-Katrina. The
whole show is great, but if you're short on time, parts
one and
three are especially smoking.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas
on Dec 14, 2008 -
3 comments
The Guardian has compiled a list of their
top fifty arts videos, the majority being from either rare or obscure sources and uploaded onto YouTube.
posted by djgh
on Aug 30, 2008 -
13 comments
NickCaveFilter: Fifty years ago this very day,
Nicholas Edward Cave [
previously] crawled from the womb and started to plot. At 16 he formed his first band which evolved quickly into the
Boys Next Door [
Shivers]. This in turn mutated into
the Birthday Party (1980) who terrorised the post-punk soundscape in Australia and the UK [
Release the Bats |
Nick the Stripper]. The
Birthday Party relocated to England and in 1984 the band imploded in an orgy of drugs and booze. Shortly after
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were born [The Ship Song -
video &
solo live | The Mercy Seat -
video &
live |
Where the Wild Roses Grow], and 23 years and 11 studio albums later (not to mention a
best selling book, a
great screenplay,
some acting and several soundtrack projects) he is still going strong. But, instead of sitting on his musical laurels he decided to get back to basics and, in 2006,
grew a huge moustache and formed
Grinderman – a four piece with a primeval hybrid Birthday Party/Bad Seeds sound [
No Pussy Blues |
Honey Bee]. Fellow Mefites, I ask you to raise a glass to
Mr. Cave… And, especially if you are not familiar to his work, don’t forget to “look inside” for my primer on the enigma that is Nick Cave, one of the
finest song-writers on the face of this miserable planet.
[more inside]
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar
on Sep 22, 2007 -
98 comments
Sunday Night, later named Michelob Presents Night Music, was an NBC late-night television show hosted by Jools Holland and David Sanborn which aired for two seasons between 1988 and 1990 as a showcase for jazz and eclectic musical artists.
[YouTubeFilter, via] [more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Sep 16, 2007 -
32 comments
I've always lumped musician
Eugene Chadbourne in with the likes of
Wesley Willis and
Daniel Johnston, but I may have been mistaken. While his songs are often absurd, experimental, and silly, he's much less eccentric than I'd always thought. In addition to having an incredible output (full discography with notes
here and in-depth review
here), he has worked with everyone from
John Zorn to
Jello Biafra, even fronting the band
Camper Van Beethoven as
Camper Van Chadbourne. He has also been a writer for
MaximumRocknRoll and
AMG and is the inventor of the electric rake (a musical instrument that would certainly annoy your neighbors).
YouTube has two awesome Chadbourne finds:
THIS is a 19-minute documentary about him and
THIS is a cable access show he appeared on called
I'm Going to Make a Drug with My Mind (if you like
cable access television, this is awesome, but please note that this video is 31-minutes long, including 60 seconds of color bars. Eugene comes on a little after the 17-minute mark). [WARNING: YouTube. A lot of YouTube in this post]
posted by elr
on Aug 11, 2006 -
34 comments
